On the Personality Traits of GitHub Contributors

People’s personality has the potential to explain the behavior in different situations. This understanding of the behavior is required to understand the intricacies of the team, which can then be used to optimize work performance. As an initial step towards optimizing work performance, in this paper, we explore the inferential power of the personality traits in explaining the behavior of contributors in various contexts of software development in GitHub. Analyses of 243 actively discussed projects showed that the contributors with extreme (high or low) levels of contributions are more neurotic compared to the contributors with medium-level of contributions. Analyses of 423 active contributors showed that contributors evolve as more conscientious, more extrovert and less agreeable over the years of participation. The findings of this study match our ideas and are promising for further explorations.